From my previous experience I have always had to use the full path name i.e. including the drive letter when linking documents to GIS data. Having said that you could try a couple of things ...
Because you with to transport the data and other documents and files start by having them all in sub-directories under one master directory when you create your .mxd. WHen you save your .mxd file, save it using "relative paths" - File - Document Properties - Data Storage Options - Store relative path names to data sources. If, when the project is opened on another computer, the links to data etc aren't re-established, you can just double click on the red exclaimation mark on any of the files and relocate the source for the data. That should then filter through and re-establish all of the links again.
My experience doing this sort of thing was using an Ms Access Database and viewing point locations through ArcGIS. If I ever moved my master directory to another computer I could simply re-establish my links by editing the full path in Access table by using the Find/Replace tool and simply changing E:\ to C:\ and every record would be changed (1250 records).
You might be able to add longer textual data if you text was part of another database, either Excel or Access and joining the tables using a common unique ID. Not sure I never bothered with that. you might have to be a little creative with your labeling statement in the data properties.
I used to make basic HTML pages using PowerPoint and then hyperlink to other documents, e.g. photos, video footage, Word, PDFs etc. and anything else that the PC had the software to run simply through text or thumbnails embeded in the HTML document and link the HTML page to the GIS data.
Anyway, I hope this helps a little or maybe gives a better boffin something to work with to get a better solution.
Cheers
